12.03.09

“The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the world health agency’s policy-making function.

“In a memorandum, the malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., that the foundation’s money, while crucial, could have “far-reaching, largely unintended consequences.”

“Many of the world’s leading malaria scientists are now “locked up in a ‘cartel’ with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group,” Dr. Kochi wrote. Because “each has a vested interest to safeguard the work of the others,” he wrote, getting independent reviews of research proposals “is becoming increasingly difficult.”

“Also, he argued, the foundation’s determination to have its favored research used to guide the health organization’s recommendations “could have implicitly dangerous consequences on the policy-making process in world health.””

DESPITE the new image Bill Gates buys for himself using PR agents*, too many people are aware of his real motives, which are similar to what they have always been. Having monopolised parts of the computing industry using illegal activities, Gates is now doing something similar in other areas such as agriculture and medicine. We gave elaborate explanations and examples before. Even renowned people have made similar accusations against Gates, but they are facing a massive PR campaign which Gates’ PR people constantly bombard the media with.

According to this revealing new research from The Guardian (UK), there is a financial link between Tony Blair (former British Prime Minister) and Bill Gates’ foundation. People have always joked about the personal relationship between those two, but now there appears to be a professional link too.

• Can you explain what funds are paid into the Windrush Ventures No3 LP partnership, by whom and why? Both the Gates Foundation and the Gatsby Foundation list payments in to this unusual partnership, and according to the FT, these are for charitable Africa projects. But the sums listed are much less than the £6.4m fee for “management services” which the partnership pays out to other Blair entities, plus a listed profit.

[...]

I note that Mr Blair has refused to answer any of our specific questions.

Both Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Google’s Larry Page are said to have personally lobbied the FCC in favor of the use of white spaces.

Didn’t Mr. Gates say that he was “retiring” to do “charitable” work?

This brings us to some news about patents, which Gates is aggressively lobbying for, as well. He knows that patents are beneficial to monopolists**, such as those he is advancing (not just Microsoft anymore). Here is a software patent being shot down:

Claim Construction: Interestingly, the court issued its summary judgment order prior to claim construction. The Federal Circuit found no error because construction of the disputed claim terms would not have changed the obviousness outcome.

FFII’s president tells us that “the judge considers that MP3 is patentable because of the technical effect trick” and he also shows us this new article about IBM’s lobbying for software patents.

In a September blog I took IBM to the woodshed for its stance on Bilski. Big Blue filed an amicus brief (PDF) that I argued was disingenuous at best. IBM argued:

Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code…which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development.

Really?!?

IBM was not alone. Novartis, the big pharmaceutical company, also filed a supporting brief.

In October 2009, the Center for Food Safety scored a significant victory with a court ruling declaring the USDA’s approval of Monanto’s sugar beets illegal. This victory followed a similar win on GE alfalfa. The courts based their rulings on the fact that the USDA didn’t produce an environmental impact statement.

And yet, Gates is funding/protecting/promoting such a monopolist striving to control the world’s sugar, which is not even properly tested for safety. Once a monopolist, always a monopolist. █

____* Part of it is an investment vehicle called the Gates Foundation, similar to Rockefeller’s and even the Mellon Foundation. Rich men’s foundations are typically constructed by PR experts to deceive future generations and portray robber barons as saviours or guardians of society (while enjoying certain benefits like tax relaxation).

** Gates complained about and even denounced patents before he had a monopoly.

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The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again